The research proposed here is an initial attempt to study both the impaired and preserved memory capacities of amnesic humans. The research is designed to provide a critical test of the hypothesis that variable, episodic, test-specific memory (episodic memory) is impaired in amnesics, while stable, invariant, rule-based or skill memory (reference memory) is unimpaired. Two tasks, one requiring mirror-reading of words, the other requiring memory for lists of items, have been designed so that the episodic memory components are distinguished from the reference memory components. The results of these two experiments, measured in both choice accuracy and reaction time, will allow for a strong test of the hypothesis. In addition, certain aspects of the study have been designed to be comparable to tests with brain-damaged animals that have provided support for the hypothesis. A final goal of the proposed research is to explore whether amnesic patients of different etiologies show a similar pattern of memory deficits, or whether different patterns of deficits are associated with different etiologies. The proposed research should be useful not only in characterizing the memory disorders of amnesic patients, but also in reflecting memory processing differences that may underlie normal human memory.